Work

Steps

1. Register with France Travail as soon as you arrive (online or on 39 49, +33 1 77 86 39 49 from abroad). You access job offers, support and benefits like a French person.
2. Also search on EURES, the European job portal, which publishes French offers.
3. Check whether your profession is regulated (health, law, teaching, construction, estate agent…) in the European database of regulated professions. If so, apply for recognition of your qualification from the competent French authority before working. Doctors, general care nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists, architects and vets benefit from automatic recognition if their training meets the minimum European requirements.
4. Read your contract: CDI (contrat à durée indéterminée, permanent contract) or CDD (à durée déterminée, fixed-term), gross salary, working time, collective agreement, any probation period.
5. If you lose your job, register with France Travail and submit your U1 if you worked in another European country.

Documents

• Valid identity document or passport.
• U1 form (unemployment insurance periods abroad), requested from the unemployment body of your former country of employment.
• U2 form if you keep receiving unemployment benefit from your former country during your search in France.
• Qualifications and, for a regulated profession, the recognition decision.

Costs and timelines

• 2026 Smic (gross): €12.31 per hour, €1,867.02 per month, €22,404.20 per year in mainland France and in the DROM excluding Mayotte; in Mayotte, €9.56 per hour and €1,449.93 per month. Amounts set by the order of 22 May 2026 (in force on 1 June 2026, increase of 2.41% announced by Service-Public on 18/05/2026).
• Working time: 35 hours per week in principle (151.67 hours per month), at most 10 hours per day and 48 hours in a week (44 hours on average over 12 weeks). 20-minute break from 6 hours of work.
• Paid leave: 2.5 working days per month worked, i.e. 5 weeks per year.
• Probation period in a CDI: 2 months for an employee or worker, 3 months for a supervisor or technician, 4 months for a manager, renewable once if a sector agreement, the contract and your written consent provide for it (4, 6 or 8 months in total). In a CDD: 1 day per week, capped at 2 weeks (CDD of 6 months at most) or 1 month.
• Unemployment from elsewhere (U2): you must have been registered for at least 4 weeks in the former country (exceptions are possible) and register with France Travail within the 7 days following the end of your registration there; payment for 3 months, extendable up to 6 months.

Common pitfalls

• Believing that your foreign salary counts for French unemployment. With a U1, and if you worked again in France before losing your job, your periods of work in Europe count towards opening the entitlement, but the amount is calculated only on your French salaries.
• Leaving without the U2. Without it, you cannot keep receiving unemployment benefit from your former country in France.
• Resigning during the probation period while expecting unemployment benefit: a termination at your initiative gives no entitlement to it, except in some cases.
• Cross-border workers who live in France and work in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium or Germany: if they lose their job and are fully unemployed, it is in principle France, the country of residence, that pays them benefit, taking into account the salaries from the country of employment. Register with France Travail and do not claim unemployment benefit from the country of employment.
• Corsica and overseas territories: same employment law and same Smic as mainland France, except Mayotte (lower Smic).

What changes by country of origin

• EU, EEA and Swiss citizens: no residence permit or work authorisation; optional EU residence card at the préfecture (the State's local office).
• British nationals (Scots included): since 1 January 2021, they need a residence permit or a visa with the right to work, unless they were already resident in France before that date (Withdrawal Agreement). British unemployment benefit can no longer be exported to France (except an exceptional continuation for an activity begun before 2021), but periods worked in the United Kingdom count, with a British U1, if you last worked in France.